With rapid development of communications technologies, wireless communications technologies are widely applied because of their advantages of convenience, efficiency, and low costs on transmitting information. In a wireless communications system, a commonly used wireless network includes a single-standard network and a heterogeneous network.
The single-standard network is a network in which network elements in the network work in a same network standard, and the heterogeneous network generally includes wireless network element nodes of different scales and different roles. In the foregoing single-standard network and the heterogeneous network in which a large quantity of network elements exist, element management is generally implemented by using an EMS (element management system).
During element management of the single-standard network, it is determined, according to a quantity of network elements in the single-standard network, that one or multiple EMSs are needed to process multiple network elements in the single-standard network. In the heterogeneous network, because network elements working in multiple standards exist, and generally, one EMS corresponding to each standard is needed to manage network elements in the standard, multiple EMSs generally exist in the heterogeneous network.
In the foregoing wireless network, each EMS manages network elements corresponding to each EMS, thereby causing that some operations performed by all EMSs are the same. For example, referring to FIG. 1, a heterogeneous network includes an LTE network standard, a 3G (3rd Generation) network standard, and a WLAN standard. An EMS corresponding to the LTE network standard is an EMS A, an EMS corresponding to the 3G network standard is an EMS B, and an EMS corresponding to the WLAN standard is an EMS C. The EMS A, the EMS B, and the EMS C are separated from each other, and manage network elements in their respective standards. A large quantity of repetitions of functions such as sending an alarm, recording or storing a log exist among the EMS A, the EMS B, and the EMS C, and a large quantity of function repetitions cause a resource waste problem of EMS hardware devices and relatively low utilization. In addition, a large quantity of hardware devices cause high hardware maintenance costs.
It may be learned that problems of low hardware resource utilization and high hardware maintenance costs exist in an existing process in which an EMS manages a network element.